Formed in 1997, New England’s UNDR QUARTET are groundbreaking practitioners of low volume improvisation. Their performances are marked by a strong sense of intimacy and a deep sensitivity to the performance space. Devoid of standard musical motives and structures, their music demands a deeper involvement on the part of performers and audience. What happens at a concert is not entertainment as much as it is a shared sense of immediate time and place among all present. The group has performed at the Autumn Uprising Festival, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Shoebox Loft (home to many of their earliest and most intimate performances), the Lindsay Chapel at the First Church of Cambridge, and Brandeis University.

“Influenced by the minimalist works of such composers as Morton Feldman and John Cage, and Japanese concepts of Wabi (rustic simplicity) and Sabi (loneliness, weathered surfaces), the undr quartet have developed a style as sensitive and responsive to the performance space as to the specific qualities of their instruments.” -Metroland (Albany, NY)

Working with analog and digital instruments since 1998, local musician BRENDAN MURRAY makes dense, long-form compositions of pure sound. Drones remain at the core of his work, with connections between the visceral and the elegant an aesthetic priority. Current activities include a new song-based band with live instruments called Paper Summer, a film score for a documentary on the Roma population of Macedonia, collaborative recordings with Seth Nehil (as Sillage) and Tomas Korber, a large scale audiovisual work with New York based multimedia artist Richard Garet, and a trio called Ouest with turntablist Jay Sullivan and longtime co-conspirator Howard Stelzer.